Thirteen film review

certificate_18

THIRTEEN

The BBFC might want to think about introducing a new rating category for this film: PT, as in not suitable for Parents of Teenagers. Thirteen offers a chillingly graphic depiction of a teenage girl's rebellious shift after falling under the influence of a wayward friend. Watching the anguish and futility of the girl's mother, played with unerring insight by Holly Hunter, must be heart wrenching for a parent.

Hunter's stirring performance is matched by that of newcomer Evan Rachel Wood in the role of her daughter Tracy. Wood is all too convincing in her portrayal of Tracy's turbulent transition from juvenile innocence to promiscuous, drug abusing, self-mutilating adolescence. It's a harrowing journey and one Thirteen chronicles to devastating effect, without subtlety or sentiment.

What lends Thirteen its palpable authenticity is the fact it was co-written by 13-year-old Nikki Reed, who also stars as Tracy's chaotic schoolmate Evie. Reed collaborated with Catherine Hardwicke who has made an impressive directorial debut after a successful career as a production designer.

The film opens with Tracy and Evie sitting on a bed taking hits on an aerosol and challenging one another to punch each other. It's a stark opening made more effective when it cuts back only four months and shows a dramatically different looking Tracy heading off to her first day of the new school term. Her wholesome wardrobe and geeky friends suddenly seem dull in comparison with the sexy and popular Evie. After the two girls hook up, the impressionable Tracy quickly changes her image and enters Evie's debauched, reckless lifestyle.

Tracy's abrupt change is a concern for her single mom Mel, but as a recovering alcoholic struggling to hold her own life together, she's ill equipped to cope with her daughter's defiance. The conflict between the two is exacerbated when Mel takes up again with her junkie boyfriend Brady (Jeremy Sisto).

Thirteen's gritty subject is reflected in the look of the film which occasionally uses grainy hand held footage and slips into fast paced hallucinogenic abstraction at times to convey Tracy's drug altered moods. Inevitably with something written and directed by first timers, particularly when one is barely a teenager, there is evidence of their inexperience, but what they lack in finesse, they make up with verve.